Gazi is an expression of what I love about Athens, what I love about ‘ellinika vromika’

His lucky number this year must be seven. Channel Ten’s MasterChef Australia looks, despite its seventh year of existence, to be headed for another successful run, and the opening of ‘Gazi’ marks the opening of the seventh restaurant for the charismatic master of taste and Greek cuisine.
The chef spoke to Neos Kosmos about the new season of MasterChef, his attempt to bring to ‘Gazi’ the ‘vromiko’, a name Greeks use for their fast food, his restaurant in Mykonos and the 457 visa holders he chooses to employ.
A year or so ago, with his comments about penalty rates paid to restaurant staff during weekends and the impact these high rates have on small businesses, George became the target for a number of attacks from the unions and other members of the public. Where does he stand today?
MasterChef, the ‘dirty’ Greek and the Press Club
On Sunday, you will enter once again many family homes with the premiere of the seventh season of MasterChef Australia. The first innovation everyone can notice is the fact that you chose to separate the contestants on the basis of their gender. Two groups, one of men and one of women. Why would you try to enter this ‘old-fashioned’ and somewhat sexist pattern to the contest?
It is only the first ten days that we have the competition girls versus boys, it is not the whole series, this is something that I want to clarify. From then we are moving into kid’s week and fast food week, and every week we are going to have a different theme. So you are calling it a bit backwards and sexist, but each year we have a team of eleven girls and eleven boys, so there is always a balance of male and female. It is very ‘fifties, the idea, it is a bit tongue in cheek, it is a lot of fun, it is not sexist and once you watch the first episode you will understand what I mean by that.
It’s really about two teams, and from the get-go, it’s let’s try to break up two teams, let’s see how well they go and from that once it’s over we go into the normalities of MasterChef.
It is the seventh season and after the past success you had, surely you do not want this one to be a flop. What are the new elements that you think will fetch high ratings for this season?
The themed and political weeks we introduced. And when I say political I mean that we talk about fast food and we get really into it. We talk for example about what is good about fast food, what is bad about fast food and what we can do to make fast food good. It is again doing what MasterChef does and it is to create a little bit of discussion around the table.
And there are a lot more surprises. For example, Friday’s Master Class has been revamped. We now do it in front of a live audience, we now have Matt Preston as part of the Master Class and all three of us will always be together. We have taken away a lot of that reality TV stuff. There will be a lot more discussions. We wanted it to be real, and keep it in the moment. When they are emotional, let’s talk about it, let’s find out what upset them. We want to find out about their lives, about their dreams, and what they want to achieve in their lives. And if I judge from the fact that we auditioned at least between 7,000 to 10,000, I think that is a measure of success as well.
You mentioned fast food before, and as far as I know Gazi, your new restaurant, serves street food, or ‘dirty’ as they call it in Greece. ‘Dirty’ inspiration, I guess.
Gazi is an expression of what I love about Athens, what I love about ‘ellinika vromika’. Just ‘dirty’ food, as they call it in Greece, and that for me is exciting. I had only a week there, and I had a few people telling me that’s not Greek food. Well you know, I feel Greek food every single moment, I touch it, I taste it, I know it and I bring my interpretation to it. I am not going to copy someone else. And the market here is different. For me also is that a lot of people do not even know the food of Greece. They do not go out there, they do not look in the cracks, into the little holes where you go at 11.30 at night and they are cooking a little omelette with loukaniko and you are hanging there with a little group of friends and a beer in your hands. It is unique and delicious. I want to bring that to Melbourne. There will a lot of old school dishes done in a new way, interesting stuff. For me, my restaurant in Mykonos is more than anything else my excuse to go to Greece every so often. I do not expect to be retired from that restaurant. Even if I have to say that it stays untouched from the financial crisis.
Should we forget the Press Club era?
I want to take the Press Club to another stage. I want it to be the best restaurant in the world and I could not do that in the space it was. It was too big. So for me to do that I had to take the decision to make it somewhere else. It will be an exclusive little space seating only thirty people. It will be next door to the old Press Club. And two doors down from that will be my Press Club project, in other words, my development project. My little lab which will be my laboratory where all the creativeness for the Press Club will come from.
Sometime ago you said that you would introduce Greek language classes for your staff. Did you?
Yes of course. It is my sister’s job – she goes in every Saturday fortnight and holds Greek language classes, but it is not just about speaking Greek. It is about understanding the Greek ways, the Greek culture, getting the feeling and the idea.
457 visa holders and employer matters
You employ 350 staff, which by most people’s standards is a significant number of workers. Some time ago you became a target of negative feedback because of your views on paying penalty rates during weekends. Your view was that workers’ pay rates are an issue for the hospitality industry. Do you still hold that belief?
My stand is still the same on penalty rates. This week we had the announcement of the Ford factory closing down, 70 people were booted out of ANZ yesterday and it is getting worse and worse. I do not employ 350 staff because I hate staff, I love my staff and there are lots of them. A lot of them worked for me for many, many years and I reward them very well for the hard work they put in. Only this morning I was talking to Christopher Peskas, one of the best Greek chefs in Greece and he has a couple of my seniors there at the moment. He is hosting them and that for me is great. My staff has the benefit of going to Greece and experiencing Greece, but at the end of the day, it is about supply and demand. Money comes in, money goes out. There must be money to pay the staff, there must be money to pay the suppliers and it is really about simple mathematics, if it does not equate up at either end, things will go wrong. The restaurant will go bust and many have and many still will. We have to be very cautious with the way we are doing things. And I know that at the end of the day, if I do something wrong I am going to be on the front page of the paper. I pay my staff correctly. I pay them on the books, there is no bullshit for me and I think that we all have to do it. But if it does not equate we have to stop and think. Why is this happening? What did we do wrong? What do we need to do to fix this problem, so restaurants won’t close, leaving staff and suppliers unpaid?
You are familiar with the discussions taking place currently in regards to 457 visa rorting. The finger pointing focuses a great deal on the hospitality industry. Do you employ 457 visa holders from Greece? And what are your views on this issue?
I have lots of 457 visa workers in my staff. I get about 40 to 50 emails per day with resumes and people looking for a job from Greece. At this stage I employ about four from Greece and they are amazing chefs and guys that I’ve known for a very long time. If you give me the answer on how to find staff here, I really need it. You see, I advertise jobs here, on my website, in the paper, different agencies and no response. The next thing I need to do is maybe to sky write the jobs available. I am lucky because I do find local talent, but when you have 350 staff and seven restaurants you cannot fill every void with local talent. Because there is not that much of it and their hunger is maybe not as much as those people from Greece who are having it very tough over there and they want to change their life. These four people worked for me in my restaurant in Greece and I have total faith in them.
Last question. Seven restaurants, daily commitments with MasterChef, you are a dad and you still manage to be on top of everything. What is the secret?
I am in love with what I am doing, that’s all.